


Fast and Slow

by Kerigeron



Series: Not a Variable [1]
Category: Marvel 3490, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Earth-3490, Gen, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 15:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10925148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerigeron/pseuds/Kerigeron
Summary: Steve remembers crashing.He doesn't remember the ice, or the water. He doesn't remember being thrown from the wreckage of the plane, or the way his body seized and then stopped. He doesn't remember anything he would have expected to, except for crashing fast and waking up slow.





	Fast and Slow

Steve remembers crashing.

He doesn't remember the ice, or the water. He doesn't remember being thrown from the wreckage of the plane, or the way his body seized and then stopped. He doesn't remember anything he would have expected to, except for crashing fast and waking up slow.

At first, he's on fire. He distantly aware that he's lying down and there is movement around him, but he can't focus because his whole body is burning and he can feel the flames dancing across his skin. The faint chill in the air tells him that this shouldn't be possible, but here he is, set alight, and no one seems to notice.

He thinks about the radio, thinks about promising Peggy a dance and the way Howard had called him a friend, and he thinks they must be listening to him die. 

He doesn't even know if he's screaming.

Panic washes over him. His pulse picks up and he feels it thundering across his fingertips, deep within his wrists, and just barely beneath temples. His heart is suddenly everywhere in his body, threatening to break free and his muscles contract to chase it away, chase it back to where it should be. As it retreats so too do the flames. 

And then comes the feeling that he doesn't think he'll ever shake; then comes the cold.

The ice is still burning across his skin, but the fire is out, and the knowledge that he is cold, _so very cold_ , slams into him without so much as a second of warning. He can't move, can't shake the frozen stillness that has trapped his body, and he knows he'll lose his fingers to this. 

A minute later, and he knows he'll be losing far more than his fingers. His lungs are ice and yet his breath is hot against his throat and lips. His pulse is slowing and the darkness behind his eyes has turned to light. Every inch of him is getting colder, needles of ice stabbing their way through his skin and burrowing into his bones. His body is screaming at him to shake off the ice and the pain, even as his breath stutters in his throat. 

He tries to move, and is surprised to find he can, but where he meant to clench his fist he only manages to twitch his thumb. He does it again, and again, and again, until he feels the soft rub of vibranium just within his reach. Somehow the knowledge that he still has his shield makes him calm for a second – he'll die as Captain America, and he'll die a hero.

He supposes he'll be remembered for this, and if it's enough to end the war, then that's fine. If not, then he's wasted Erskine's last gift and he's let his country down. 

He knows which is more likely.

But it's not that thought that breaks him and sends him spiralling into a panic. The war can wage on and people can think of him as poorly as he deserves, but it's the knowledge that it could cost him the ones he loves, has already taken so many from him, that breaks his chest into pieces and twists what's left into a knot of pain.

Because patriotism is woven into his soul and Steve is as brave as he is loving, but deep within the heart of him he is as selfish as the next person. In this moment he has only thoughts for Bucky and the Howling Commandos, for Peggy and for Howard and for how much he hopes they aren't fondue-ing. The war has taken from so many people across the world, but as he lies there dying, Steve doesn't give a damn about any of it.

He can't care about anyone that isn't _his_. 

He's so caught up mourning everything that's been taken from him that it takes him hours to realise that he is actually getting warmer. 

He is getting warmer, and by extension he is not dying, which is categorically brilliant until he finally manages to open his eyes. When he does, he realises he is surrounded by people he doesn't know and technology far more advanced than anything the allied forces had access to, and that can only mean Hydra which is categorically _not_ brilliant.

His body is still stiff and his hands feel stubby and clawed, but he manages to get a hold on his shield and is on his feet in seconds, desperation lending him strength.

It's only when the conversation around him stops that he realises there was any to begin with. Faces turn to him and he barely has a minute to register that no one is moving, no one is even breathing, before he pitches forwards and the sound of his shield hitting the metal floor follows him into darkness.

 

\----

 

When he wakes again he knows something is wrong.

He can smell fresh bedding and bleach, he can hear the radio lilting it's way through a Billie Holiday song that he never had time to grow to love, and the flowers on his windowsill are fresh and beautiful. 

Everything is exactly what he would expect to find waking up in hospital - exactly what he's found every time he's ever woken in a hospital, and there isn't a trace of the technology he'd seen the first time he woke, or the strange people he saw before he blacked out.

Steve had never been simple. He knows a lie when he's shown one and he's out of the room and running before the shocked nurse can finish her squeak of surprise.

The building is tall and full of strange things and he gets turned around more than once. When he finally makes it out and onto the sidewalk his head is spinning too much to even process what he's seeing.

The streets are loud and full of life in a way that Steve has never seen before; there's no way these are the streets of a country at war and he has less than a minute to try and figure out where on Earth he's found himself before something fast and gleaming and red-and-gold slams down in front of him and forces him to stop running.

The metal _thing_ stands in front of him, hands reaching out and palms facing down. 

"Shit I told them not to do this," the robot says "Calm down, it's okay. You're in New York City," and Steve adds the way it talks with inflection to the growing list of things that have him poleaxed.

"You've been asleep a long time Captain."

 

\----

 

The metal robot had talked him down for what felt like hours, before a swath of heavily armed men in black had cordoned off the street and surrounded them. Steve hadn't been able to focus on anything the robot had told him past the fact that he'd been asleep for seventy years and somehow hadn't aged a day.

As the modulated voice washed over him, so did a deep and unforgiving feeling of wrongness. He felt like a piece of a puzzle trying to fit into the wrong jigsaw. 

He felt like a centennial in an old, white hospital gown, surrounded by young, sleek men in black suits. 

He had watched as the robot tensed up and yelled something at the surrounding army, watched as it had argued with an imposing man who wore an eye patch and, with a strange pang of disappointment, watched as it took off - sent home by Eye Patch's hand on its shoulder and an unforgiving nod.

He was escorted back to the building he'd just broken out of, sandwiched between Eye Patch and a stoic man in black. He sat back on his bed when he was told to, and let them run their tests on him. He answered questions, and asked as many in return, filing the information away for him to parse through later.

He couldn't think about anything right now.

He couldn't think about anything but the fire and ice that still ghosted across his skin, and of the way it felt to come back to life.

He couldn't think about except the way he had just died in reverse, and how the wrongness of it has filled him up so much that he feels empty.

It's okay though, because he does it the right way round in his dream that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed.
> 
> This is the prologue for a (much) longer 3490 fic I'm currently working on! If that's your jam, then hang about - hopefully I'll have an update for you soon.


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